WHO’s WHO SERIES : Jenova Chen
WHO’S WHO SERIES
II. JENOVA CHEN
Who is this Jenova Chen ? In case you are wondering, I will divide the subject into two parts. That is the best thing i can do to describe Jenova.
Jenova(middle) with Spore team(Maxis)
Professionally, he is a game designer, founder of That Game Company, a successful man in the field. If you go through his resume : Jenova’s Resume , you will know what i mean by being so successful and young.
And the scary thing is, yes, he got scholarships almost all the time in his life on earth! (Man, i would consider myself amazingly lucky if i ever… and i mean.. ever.. get a scholarship. Even if it is just once in my life. (Or maybe more than lucky, but ti ‘ is a miracle~~~!)
Anyway, Jenova also is the one who created the game Flow, which is going to be produced in PS3 platform. You can find more information about the game in Jenova’s personal website.
Furthermore, his blog is really inspiring for me, through his deep insight and research about game design, i can always learn something from reading his blog. Which i suggest all of you to read too.
Especially the Flow theory.
Have you ever stop and think for awhile , what makes a game is good to play for one people but not good for the other ? Why somebody will spend hours playing and not even realizing he/she has missed her lunch ? What makes you keep on going for hours and hours ? Why the excitement ? Where is it from ?
Read his thesis about the Flow theory. You will get your answers there.
When i was reading his Thesis, I was like : "Man! Wherever he got that thoughts from ??! I never know somebody will ever thought about something like this."
Jenova Chen
And when i go through his resume i was like : " Wow..look at those achievements that this guy got! He must be 40 years
old or something." –lol
So now comes to personally, I got his MSN from ’somewhere’, cannot expose openly here. I got to ask his permission first. So for the mean time i’ll just say : ’somewhere’.
Then at first (since i thought he is an old– 40 years old guy) i called him Mr Chen. Until he told me when i asked him how old is he, then he answered : 24…I was like… totally…..unable to accept..ahahahah : WHAT!!!!??? DAMN!!!
That was in June/July 2006. When I just started my animation course. And until now, he is very humble and kind to talk to me and give me tips here and there. I really look up to him and take him as my role model. And I wanted to meet him someday.
Jenova’s Dad (More handsome than Jenova)
Even when his moody feelings comes and take over, hardly saying anything on chat, i still respect him being tired from the job (sometimes he just forgot to rest and work ’till 2 am) or busy doing something (workaholic) or playing world of warcraft (all men plays wow and addicted to it rather than to his own girlfriend).
The cool thing is, i can even relate to Jenova about my problems and he is a very positive person. I also get constantly moral support from him. Whenever i want to jump off the building from trying so hard to be in the industry, whenever i feel like giving up and cry, he will tell me never to give up.
Yes, thank you so much Jenova-sama, i will never forget the kindness, and hope that i can return it to you someday.
Well…even two full pages will never get me satisfied from writing about Jenova.
So i guess i’ll just end it here and not bore you with all the details.
Complete information about Jenova Chen and his Thesis
(Jenova Chen’s personal website) : click here
Jenova Chen’s That game company : click here
next week on Who’s who : American McGee
